The Green Eyed Monster
by unoriginalrhombus
Summary: Summary: This is a completely AU oneshot. It's totally angsty, deals with a character death, and alcohol abuse in a way . I suck at summaries but I promise it's deliciously angsty. "There was a time, a place, a feeling. There was then. There was Quinn and there was Rachel, and they were happy. There was joy and significant recognition of the small things."


**The Green Eyed Monster (Envy Is Nothing to Be Jealous Of)**

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing; it's all property of Ryan Murphy & Fox. The song used is Colly Strings by Manchester Orchestra. Check it out!

**A/N:** Another repost, I don't mean to bombard you all with these, I honestly just feel better having everything on one site for whoever wants to come back and read them. Easy access, ya know? Plus, it's kind of neat to see how my writing has changed over the years. I like to think that I've gotten better T.T. Anyway, read and review PLEASE. PM me if you have questions, whatever floats your boat, I am always here! ENJOY. (Also, this is the story that I hold closest to my heart b/c it has the most of me in it).

_**Take a leaf of paper and draw your mind**_

Quinn had always wanted to write _stories_.

Stories filled with dragons and kings, evil witches and poisoned apples. Stories that were filled with princesses that were always rescued and of princes that were always noble.

Stories that were motivational, that would inspire.

She had wanted to write about characters that have the ability to overcome obstacles and preach that as long as you believe; good will happen.

_**Your bourbon brown that can burn my eyes**_

Even at a young age Quinn could feel the stories taking shape in her head and dragging her away from her reality.

That's why she wanted to write stories that showed that everything _could_ happen for a reason.

She wanted to offer a sweet tasting moral with a sweet tasting ending that battles all the bitter and the hate. She wanted to write something that implants just a seed of possibility, a seed of imagination, a seed of hope that'll make someone else believe in miracles.

_**I lost your presence underneath the bridge**_

Quinn wanted to give someone a dream.

A dream that knows no bounds, a dream that lets you imagine things you never thought possible. She wanted to make people believe in princesses and happily ever afters, in pirates and their buried treasure, in glass slippers and strokes of midnight.

She wanted to write of those things, to write _those_ stories, to bring those things to life.

Quinn had always been fairly good at getting what she wanted; actually, she'd always gotten what she wanted. It was no secret to the universe that when Quinn Fabray wanted something, she tended to freaking get it.

_**Lock the door, let's talk it out**_

The thing was, she could never bring herself to make the stories come to life. The words never seemed to fit and the stories never made it out. She wasn't ever quite sure if it was God's way of trying to show her that messed up people with messed up families can't produce happy dreams or if it was just her subconscious trying to prevent her from holding on to false realities.

The truth was she had envied Rachel Berry at first. She envied the Rachel Berry with her vast vocabulary; the girl who never quite had a problem communicating her ideas through that big mouth of hers, even at the tender age of seven.

The reality was that Quinn had lashed out so strongly at first because she didn't know any other way. She didn't want people to know that Rachel Berry—the girl with two dads, _two_—had anything for Quinn to be jealous of. She wanted everyone to know just how ridiculous that idea even was.

The point was Quinn didn't think she could write a story that could empower so many things, when she could barely write a story that'll minimize her, but is the only one she really has to tell.

_**Against the wall, hands on my mouth**_

But the words still take shape in her head. Twisting and edging their way deep down inside of her, always barely bubbling beneath the surface but never crawling from underneath her skin. Words to a secret that Quinn knew someone, somewhere, will give a label to. A label that'll diminish the words that she holds inside, that'll give truth to the things she has yet to say.

Honestly, Quinn's never spoken the words out loud because she's afraid. She's afraid they'll be caught like a firefly and remain the truth forever. But without the words, without the stories, without the things she has tried to keep hidden, nobody will understand.

_**Could this be it, is it really over now?**_

"Ms. Fabray?"

The sentence broke Quinn out of her thoughts and she shot her head up and out of her notebook to meet the kind face of her community college English professor.

"Would you care to read your story aloud?"

Quinn licked her lips before nodding. She grabbed her notebook and made her descent towards the front of the classroom, quickly trying to gather her thoughts on what she was willing to share and what she wasn't. Whether her writing was worth changing or whether she would read it as is.

Quinn continued her pace down the stairs to the front, thoughts rushing through her head.

There will be no happy endings, no noble princes. No heroes, no heroines. There aren't pirates with buried treasure or ways to capture everlasting life. There aren't any words that'll taste sweet on the tip of someone's tongue or give them promises of tomorrow. It isn't a story that anyone wants to hear, it isn't a story that'll make them feel confident or swell with pride. This isn't a story that'll bring hope or give redemption. It isn't a story that can promise someone she's worth anything.

It's an important moment, of time in space that is otherwise forgotten but seared into Quinn's brain.

Quinn slowed down as she reached the front, turning around to face the crowd of eager adults, curious as to what Quinn would be willing to share.

Quinn licked her lips and began.

"This is a story, but it's also a memory. It's words that I can't take back once they're said, its images that I can't replace once they're imagined. It's a judgment I can't fix once everyone reaches it."

Quinn cleared her throat softly as she looked out into the classroom. "This _is_ a story, this is _her_ story."

_**You wore a pink t-shirt and khaki pants**_

Of all the people in the world, Quinn would never have imagined that Rachel would end up being the person she holds the most trust in. Especially not with the way they started out.

To say Quinn was harsh would be a bit of an understatement.

Sure, she was seven, but she still understood what words were hurtful and what things were rude. Quinn was old enough to distinguish the right from the wrong. She was old enough to know that she didn't really hate Rachel; she just hated what she could be.

That didn't stop her from trying to prove otherwise.

_**You said you saw it coming but you didn't see nothing**_

Unfortunately for Quinn, Lima wasn't known for its vast population. Usually the people you met in the first grade were the people you were stuck with for the next eleven years.

Unfortunately for Rachel, Quinn wasn't quite ready to accept Rachel's offer of friendship. It wasn't for the lack of trying either, every day Rachel would be so painstakingly the same, it was almost unbearable for Quinn.

Those days always began the same.

Every day Rachel would pack a lunch for two, she seemed to be the only one that noticed that Quinn never had a lunch of her own– or she was just the only one who cared enough to see past her half-assed excuse— and always came prepared.

Rachel would carry both lunches in her Cinderella backpack, her pigtails made in perfect symmetry and her outfits always ridiculously mismatched. She would march into their first grade classroom with that giant grin, that stupid grin that Quinn just hated and she would offer up her second lunch to Quinn. She would smile and talk about how she thought they would make good friends and she just looked so damn eager and happy that Quinn couldn't stand it.

Those days always ended the same.

With a perfected glare, a mild snarl and a detached, "I don't want food from people like you."

_**Don't worry about, don't worry about anything**_

They carried on like that through all of their first grade year, second grade year, and most of their third grade year. But Rachel was relentless in her efforts, relentless with her damn optimism.

Quinn wanted to blame Rachel for the tentative friendship that began. She wanted to blame Rachel for making her believe in all those damn things Quinn wanted to believe in, she wanted to blame Rachel for making her care.

At the end of the day, Quinn was pretty sure she would have ended up caring anyway.

_**A pity invitation to an awkward house**_

It began slowly at first.

Shy hellos turned into shared lunches. Shared lunches turned into quiet recesses. Quiet recesses turned into rides home, school projects and weekend sleepovers.

Weekend sleepovers turned into day visits and Quinn practically living at Rachel's. Rachel never asked why Quinn spent so much time at her house and for that Quinn was grateful.

She didn't want to explain the silence in her house or the substance her family inhaled more than water. She didn't want to explain the failures; she just wanted to bask in the accomplishments.

Rachel was always good for that. Rachel was _good_.

There was simplicity before there were broken things.

There was a time, a place, a feeling. There was then. There was Quinn and there was Rachel, and they were happy. There was joy and significant recognition of the small things.

There were also fascinations, goals and aspirations clouding up their heads. It was all present in shifting both of their judgment, clouding them, tainting their ideas and replacing them with actions that wouldn't have normally occurred.

Quinn wanted to blame the alcohol for the shift in their demeanors.

It was common knowledge that no matter how screwed up Quinn she was, she wouldn't have ever willingly allowed both of them to spend the night at a house that isn't even worth mentioning. She wouldn't have willingly put Rachel in danger.

Quinn wished she could blame the alcohol for her mistakes.

_**You played your songs and you danced your dance**_

She barely remembered in fleeting flashes, how the music was so loud that it made the house shake and it kept making her insides jump. Like it knew Quinn's inner darkest secrets and it was trying to put them on display.

Quinn didn't remember what the celebration was for. She couldn't remember the words that were exchanged or even the actions that probably defined a generation. Her mind is even foggy on the culprit behind the brilliant idea to go in the first place.

Although, a part of Quinn knows it was her idea. A part of Quinn knows that she wanted desperately to go as a last hoorah before Rachel and she headed off to NYC for college. Quinn knows it was her idea to try to forget everything bad that happened in the past seventeen years so that she could have some space for all the good.

_**I unwrapped your presents underneath your feet**_

Mostly she just remembers the bitter taste of alcohol, the lies that left her lips with complete and utter ease and the feeling of obsolete security. Quinn didn't care enough to try and do better, to be better. She only cared enough to forget with the one person who was worth forgetting with.

There are very few things Quinn can recall with the same frightening clarity and she wonders if maybe her sense of self isn't what it's supposed to be for a young girl.

_**Nine to eleven you're getting weak**_

That moment Quinn cared more about forgetting the troubles and sadness that had surrounded her life, engulfed her in such chaos that she turned to alcohol as her savior. Quinn hoped it could fix her, she still hopes it can fix her.

Perception had never been something that Rachel or she lacked; it was never one of Quinn's various shortcomings. And yet, perception failed Quinn that morning, in the instance when she felt nothing more than a slight hangover, when Quinn cared for nothing more and everything less. In that moment Quinn wasn't concerned with her best friend, lover, girlfriend, confident, _her_ Rachel.

_Everything fails and demolishes the trust that you carry inside._

_**The tile is cold, I can barely speak**_

The sun was just as bright that morning as it was any other. Their aspirations were just as golden, the colors were just as fresh. In a significant moment people like to think that if they ever had to recall it, they'd recall it all. But Quinn couldn't, she can't.

There is no specific moment to recall, nothing that felt out of place. No staleness in the air or fear in their hearts. There was no exact moment when she knew everything was all wrong. Quinn wished she could say that she offered a choice, an option, where Rachel didn't have to drive her home, a choice that gave Rachel a _chance_ to survive. Quinn wished she could say that she remembered Rachel's face in that moment before the crash. Or that she offered Rachel condolences and promises, statements of hope and encouragement.

Quinn didn't, Quinn couldn't, and _she can't_.

She can't admit those wrongs. She can't speak the words that eat away at her during the night. Quinn can't say those things, can't give more reasons for people to hate her.

Quinn can only mention the silence. The silence in that split moment when it changed from laughing and smiling to panicking and fear. From playing a game of car tag and her grabbing Rachel's arm, causing the car to jerk. Silence in that small moment when Quinn realized they were going entirely too fast to fully stop at the stop sign, when she realized she had pulled Rachel's arm too far.

Quinn didn't see the car coming, she doesn't even know if Rachel did. She just knows she didn't _see _anything.

_**And I think she's gone, but I'll be sure for safety's keeping**_

Pale lies within an empty heart, can you take the hurt from inside and build her into a respectable person? Make her the person she used to be. Take away the faults, the imperfections. Leave her without the memories that lay heavy on her heart and limit her breathing.

Make Quinn that bitch again, the bitch that couldn't feel anything that long, long time ago.

All Quinn knows is that none of it is like the movies.

Time didn't slow down, nothing became intensely clear. Everything was exactly how it sounded. Quinn was there with Rachel and they were laughing. And then Quinn just wasn't. The wind was knocked out of her body and that's when everything shifted, that's when Quinn could feel it. Because they were just there and then, then they were flying.

Quinn didn't offer any courage. Instead she closed her eyes because she was too frightened to look. Quinn closed her eyes and she prayed. She prayed because she was too scared to see the damage that some stranger's huge Toyota could make on Rachel's tiny two door VW Beatle. Quinn prayed because she wasn't strong enough to face it herself.

_**If you say no, then no it will be**_

She felt the pull, the shift in the air. She felt the impact of the car and the glass fly through her hair. Quinn felt them fly and she felt them fall. Most of all Quinn felt that damn silence.

It was deafening.

_There was silence before there was screaming. There was stillness before there was realization and there was wholeness before there was imperfection._

There was them before there was her.

_**Just play it cool yeah, and try avoid being seen**_

Everyone expected the words to spill from Quinn's mouth like it was some sort of memory that's worth profiting on, whether it be with money or pity. Everyone wanted to know what it felt like, why it hurt Quinn so much.

Honestly, it felt like that moment in life when someone knows that nothing will ever be the same. That's what it felt like. It felt like Quinn was hit at seventy-five miles per hour and that the impact forced Rachel's Beetle to flip down the hill twice. It felt like Rachel's seatbelt came undone and that Quinn didn't open her eyes. It felt like Rachel was screaming from the pain. It felt like Quinn lacked the courage to be a better person and provide the comfort that she knows she should have.

It hurt beyond the glass that surrounded everywhere like some kind of shattered soul. It hurt because she opened her eyes. It hurt because Quinn's seat belt was fine, it hurt because she stayed with Rachel for nearly thirty minutes, and it hurts because she _cried, _because she prayed. It hurt because Quinn promised Rachel she would be okay.

It hurts because Rachel wasn't.

_**I'll stick it at our skin, pierced for nothing**_

She can't describe what Rachel looked like, how she was marred and shaped into someone so far from the person that Quinn loved. She can't express what it feels like to be in a car upside down, to fall from a ceiling and feel blood that isn't hers seep into her clothes, shifting them into constant reminders of her terrible faults.

She can't explain the feeling of watching the only person you ever bothered to care about shift into something less meaningful in front of your eyes.

Quinn can't explain what it feels like to be so close to salvation, to be able to taste the distance between Lima and herself, and to have that taken away from her.

Quinn can't explain what it felt like to lose Rachel.

_**Well yeah I saw inside the mirror and your smoking gun**_

Quinn felt like she was on fire.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't try._

Her heart was on overdrive.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't stop._

Her eyes refused to open.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't cry._

She heard screaming.

_**Along in the sign, the hours, the subscribing one by one**_

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't panic._

Quinn's head was pounding and her ears were ringing.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't fall._

She heard her name. She opened her eyes because she heard her name spoken barely above a whisper. She _heard_ it.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't run._

When Quinn opened her eyes she saw Rachel, lying underneath her and Quinn barely had time to register Rachel's ragged breathing or how Rachel managed to get down there when she was still secured in the car.

_Don't move, don't breathe, and don't scream._

Rachel was crying and there was just so much blood and Quinn remembers this smell. It was a mixture of burned metal, gasoline and something she can never describe. She thinks it smelled like fear and destruction.

_**And I fell so fast in Seth Ott's bedroom**_

When Quinn finally managed to make it beside Rachel, she was already starting to sound weak. Quinn was seventeen and scared. Rachel was in so much pain and she just wanted to make it better.

Quinn just wanted it all to be better.

But Rachel's breathing was shallow, she wasn't very responsive and Quinn was just so damn scared. She couldn't get her body under control and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. It was nothing like the stories Quinn wanted to tell or the movie synopsizes that Rachel could recount with such clarity. It wasn't those childhood dreams that Quinn used to have, the ones with the happy endings. Rachel wasn't a princess and Quinn wasn't her prince.

She was just Quinn, _just_ Quinn and for once she didn't know what to do. She had never been just Quinn before.

She's just Quinn now.

_**Confessedly, this is the first time I've loved you**_

Quinn finally looked up from her story, her mind deciding that she just couldn't read anymore. The room was silent and Quinn could have sworn that she felt a chill, or something that proved that Rachel was still with her.

Quinn sighed before glancing back down at her story, "I don't think I know much of anything anymore. But what I do know is that the sun shines every morning and the dreams come every night. What I do know was that she was everything and I, I let her die. What I do know is that I wake up every morning feeling a little more incomplete but I mask it all with an ease that frightens me. What I do know is that I saw it all happen and it can't be unseen. What I do know is that I miss her, every day and every night. I miss her."

Quinn closed her book slowly and gave a swift nod to her teacher before making a beeline to her seat. She felt eyes start to follow her, obviously unsure as to what their reaction should be. Almost as quickly as she felt the eyes follow her, she felt them disappear with a simple glare from her seat buddy.

Quinn slid into her seat quickly and tried her best to pretend she didn't exist. "Thanks S."

The brunette gave her a swift nod. "I told Berry I'd always have your back."

Quinn smiled. Leave it to Rachel to make sure Quinn was taken care of if Rachel wasn't around to do so. "Seriously, S, thanks for everything."

Santana grimaced. "Jesus Q, could you be anymore fucking depressing?"

"I could have read the end of the story. The actual end of the story," Quinn replied quietly.

Santana's gaze softened. She didn't even bother to say anything else, she just placed her hand on Quinn's shoulder—which was the most comforting gesture Santana could manage on a good day—and gave it a tight squeeze. She grabbed Quinn's notebook as Quinn stared across the classroom, and opened it to the last page with any writing on it.

She looked down at the last few sentences then back up to Quinn.

"Oh Quinn," Santana whispered softly. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Quinn nodded as Santana started shoving both their things in her sack. She sent a quick glare to the professor—as well as the students—to make sure they didn't question their sudden departure and was pleased to see everyone silenced with one look.

It was nice to know that some things never change.

She grabbed Quinn's hand and tugged her to her feet, making sure to protectively wrap an arm around Quinn's waist, the last few sentences of Quinn's story running through her mind.

"_Do you remember when we were seven and you were sitting in music class with your blue sundress? You were dancing in your chair and you just seemed so cool that I begged the teacher to sit us together. When she finally did I was so excited, I even told you that I thought our voices seemed like they could be compatible, do you remember that? You were mean to me for a whole week, but I still tried and instead of being offended by my persistence you just turned to me that Friday and you said, "Hi, my name is Quinn. My favorite color is blue because the sky is blue. My daddy said I need to make better friends but I like music the best. You have pretty shoes." That's when I knew that I would love you forever, and I will. Even if we aren't together after this, even though it hurts right now, I know I will."_


End file.
